We are no longer restricted by the ball and chain of desktop computers and ethernet cables. We create content from wherever we please, making location an ever increasing part of that content, and applications like Dailyplaces are helping to bring time and place to the forefront of content creation.
Dailyplaces is a location-based microblogging tool, offered as both an iPhone app and a website, that allows its users to create short posts centered around their location.
According to an email from the company, the service “allows both private users and organizations as well as companies to engage in location-based, real-time communication.” These users can save locations as “points of interest”, tagging them with a photo and text message, as well as other contextual information, such as address, phone number, address, phone number and even website.
The thing we like about Dailyplaces is that it focuses on the importance of time and location in mobile microblogging. While Twitter offers geolocational data from both third-party clients and its website, it remains a sort of after-thought. Gowalla and Foursquare allow users to do things like create locations and add pictures and comments, but the focus remains on checking in.
Dailyplaces, on the other hand, focuses on organizing content by time and place. You can browse posts according to their relation to your location and when they were posted. Much like microblogging site Posterous, each user is given a personal page, such as my own at rwwmike.dailyplaces.net, which shows profile information, basic stats and a list of recent posts with an accompanying map.
The iPhone app lets you view posts according to who created them, when they were created and where they were created in relation to where you are. Creating a new post is as simple as tapping a button, snapping a picture and entering some text. The service can also integrate your Twitter account, posting a tweet whenever you post to Dailyplaces.
While Dailyplaces doesn’t look to be the end-all of location-based microblogging, it’s on the right track. We can expect to see a lot more services like this being used to create content for mobile endeavors, such as touring bands, traveling acts and even just friends on road trips that want to share their experiences. We would love to see a bit more functionality in grouping together posts, either by theme or by trip, and while the iPhone does have a camera, we’re not sure that a picture should be required of each and every post. Do we really want to post pictures of black nothingness if we decide to use the service at night?
